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According to Steve Jobs, one of the iPad's more-glaring deficiencies - its inability to easily print - will be remedied. Someday.

That is, if a thoroughly undocumented report from a MacRumors reader is to be believed. According to that unnamed source, an email sent to Jobs last Friday asking "Why no printing on the iPad? What gives?" was answered by The Man himself in typical Jobsian terseness: "It will come."

MacRumors provided no email-header evidence supporting the message's authenticity, as have other such missives regarding Ogg Theora, an App Store for the Mac, and trademarks, so we'll leave it up to you to decide whether or not to trust its provenance.

If true, however, the ability to print notes, web pages, or documents created or edited in Apple's own Pages, Numbers, and Keynote productivity apps would be a welcome addition.

Currently, getting those documents to a printer requires syncing your iPad with iTunes running on a computer, or emailing the document to yourself, opening that email message on a computer, then printing it.

Clumsy, to say the least.

So, Mr. Jobs, if you're reading this (seeing as how you've been answering customer emails, it does appear that you have some free time on your hands), know that The Reg hopes this email is authentic and that easy iPad printing is on the way - and that "It will come" in the next iteration of the iPhone OS, version 4.0, scheduled to appear for the iPad this fall.

Oh, and Steve? This business of tossing out short, tantalizingly unprovable emails to the occasional fanboi? Brilliant marketing device, brilliant. Well-played - free coverage is always a good thing. ®